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Microsoft and Google announced that they have settled there global patent disputes, including the litigation underlying the FRAND dispute that gave rise to Judge Robart’s first-of-its-kind decision on determining a FRAND royalty that was recently affirmed on appeal at the Ninth Circuit (see our July 31, 2015 post). Accordingly, the parties filed yesterday a…

Last Friday, Apple and Google reportedly agreed to dismiss all current lawsuits between them, including standard essential patent cases involving Motorola Mobility that Google recently sold to Lenovo. The three-sentence joint statement by Apple and Google indicates that their agreement does not include any cross license (to SEPs or otherwise), stating:

Today, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it has approved a modified final order that settles its investigation into Motorola Mobility’s alleged anti-competitive practices surrounding its standard-essential patent licensing and enforcement program (for more background, see our original post on the case). Here’s the Commission’s final decision and order, as well as a final…

On March 5, 2013 at 2:00pm, the Intellectual Property Owners Association is holding a webinar to discuss the potential implications that the FTC-Google consent decree may have on the world of standard-essential patents. The webinar is taking place as part of of IPO’s weekly IP Chat Channel series. David W. Long, a member of Dow Lohnes’s Litigation group and a co-author of The Essential Patent Blog, will be one of the webinar presenters. Details on the webinar and information on how to register for it is after the jump.…Continue Reading

We’ve finally sifted through the many public comments submitted in response to the FTC-Google consent decree and proposed order. As we noted Monday, over two dozen individuals, companies, and organizations representing a wide range of interests submitted comments. Later this week, we will do a post featuring the details of some of the post submitted by interested companies, such as Apple, Ericsson, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Research In Motion. But today, we are going to focus on the comments that have been submitted by other types of organizations, which include a veritable alphabet soup of interest groups, professional organizations, and industry or trade associations.…Continue Reading

This past Friday (Feb. 22) was the deadline for the public to submit comments to the Federal Trade Commission on the FTC’s consent decree that it entered into last month with Google and Motorola Mobility. More than two dozen individuals, companies, and organizations chose to submit comments, and their submissions reflected a wide range of interests and opinions about issues relating to both standard-essential patent issues and Google’s search practices.

These comments may be accessed from the FTC’s web site. In a future post, we will do a deep dive into some of the more interesting comments submitted. In the meantime, after the jump is a list of the entities that submitted comments, along with links to their web sites:

[UPDATE]Since this post was originally published on January 22, the deadline passed for the parties to submit extrinsic evidence and additional arguments supporting their respective interpretations of the Google-MPEG LA AVC/H.264 license agreement. Microsoft submitted both a brief and a supporting Declaration of Lawrence A. Horn, who is the President and CEO of MPEG LA, LLC. Mr. Horn’s declaration supports Microsoft’s argument (as detailed in our original post below) that the scope of the grant-back under the MPEG LA license agreement extends to all Affiliates of Google, not just to those specifically identified. For its part, Motorola argues that the “scope” language of the MPEG LA agreement remains ambiguous, and that Mr. Horn’s declaration represents inadmissible hearsay because Motorola was unable to cross-examine him.

The parties’s respective briefs and Mr. Horn’s declaration may be accessed from the links below:

Judge Robart’s forthcoming opinion in the Microsoft v. Motorola RAND breach of contract case in the Western District of Washington is highly anticipated by those who pay attention to standard-essential patent disputes, as it will likely provide a judicially-sanctioned roadmap for how to determine RAND terms and conditions in a given licensing situation. But before he issues a written decision, a hearing is scheduled for January 28, during which Judge Robart will hear oral argument from Microsoft and Motorola regarding the implications that Google’s AVC/H.264 patent pool license agreement with MPEG-LA may have on the appropriate RAND terms for Motorola Mobility’s H.264-essential patent portfolio. (Google, of course, being the parent company of Motorola Mobility since it acquired Motorola in May 2012).

In the wake of the FTC-Google settlement, an investigation into potential antitrust violations by Google continues in Europe. Joaquin Almunia, the European Commission’s antitrust & competition chief, said that the FTC’s decision would not affect the European Commission’s investigation. (Financial Times)

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The Essential Patent LLC intellectual property law firm welcomes you to the Essential Patent Blog! This blog was started in response to increased interest and litigation surrounding standard-essential patents (SEPs). Historically, most SEP issues were relegated to theoretical discussions in academic literature or conference presentations. But that’s changing.